The problem with the NBA is that a majority of fans correctly view the regular season as irrelevant. When over 50% of your teams make the playoffs, it means each regular season game carries relatively little importance in terms of getting to the playoffs which is what American fans have been taught to value. In baseball despite the insane number of games they play, only 8 teams make the playoffs. In football, 12 teams make it and there are only 16 regular season games. You can make arguments about the importance of seeding in the playoffs but the average fan doesn't care. They just want you to let them know when the playoffs start. It's the problem with American sports being so dependent on a playoff type of structure.
I'm from Chicago too, having grown up here, and while this is a HUGE baseball and football town, the NBA is a close third. I'm not sure what part you are living at right now, but there are some truly diehard fans here...I know a TON of them (although not perhaps in the corporate world). The media sometimes shuns the Bulls a bit because we have two baseball teams and the Bears (and the Bulls have been sort of mediocre to terrible in the last decade), but Chicago has a LOT of basketball passion.
Corporate Chicago has a lot of non-native Chicago-ins I assume? Didn't grow up around the Jordan mystique. I understand what you are saying though, the NBA's popularity seems to be in decline. Its almost not hip to like it. If someone did a study I bet it would reveal a huge chunk of the female NBA fanbase is now gone as opposed to the 80s. Just a hunch. Someone do research.
Bird said it best ...need a White superstar. There arent any and no up and comers in college. Doesnt matter to me . I love the NBA. No need to force White superstats down our throats (nash)! Just let the league grow and love the players no matter what color they are.
For a lot of people, the NBA is too much like the WWE. The games almost seem staged. In what other sport do the fans know the names of the refs. Stearn has pretty much taken all the integrity out the NBA game especially with the rule changes and his dealings with the refs.
i notice that my white friends/classmates are the ones least likely to follow NBA basketball. the ones that do follow the NBA are generally minorities. one comment that i have heard many times from white people who stopped following the NBA is that they say it is full of "thugs". but they can never successful explain how the NBA is any more thuggish than the NFL or MLB. i personally think the lack of white AMERICAN all-stars is what hurt the NBA's popularity amongst many white american fans. back in the 80s/90s, you had bird, stockton, hornacek, a young brent barry, laettner, schrempf, mullins, majerle, price and chambers to name a few. now who do you have? mike miller? david lee? not exactly all-stars by any means. all the good white players in the league nowadays are from outside the U.S.
Hmmm, off topic I know, but the NFL is obviously flooded with steroids. Anyone who doesn't agree with that statement is in complete denial. Some of the players are just too strong, mean, and ridiculously athletic to not be juiced. There are way too many players with Lebron type bodies. Yet baseball gets all the publicity for being a tainted sport. Why?
Looks like the NBA needs a little Affirmative Action! But seriously though guys, i think it has more to do with the image of the game than it does the number of white players. It seems that Stern knows that the fanbase of the Bird-days got disillusioned somewhere along the Jail-Blazers and players like Iverson and Marbury. I don't think fans care if a player is a thug on the court (i.e. the Bad Boys of Detroit or the Stockton-Malone Jazz), but when he is one of the prominent faces of the league and he has numerous stupid off-court issues, you have problems. This is why the NBA is so keen to embrace all-around good guys like LeBron, CP3, Dwight Howard, Roy, Rose, Wade, etc. Also, it is no fluke that they spend so much with their "the NBA Cares" campaign. Stern understands the truth - the pre-game dress code. Its not about race. Its about too many star players matching the negative stereotypes out there for too long.
I've often wondered this myself. Some of those guys are ridiculously large. I think it just has to do with the history of Baseball in this country and the sanctity of the numbers, and that some players, and I'll use Bonds as an example, seem to benefit immensely from steroid use. The guys in Football who are juicing up are just pounding on each other anyways, so no one cares. Personally, I would like to see a league wide crackdown on it, but I don't think this will happen. People watch the NFL because it's like a show.
Well, I'm surprised so many people are bringing up race. I just don't think it's about race. The NBA is the most accessible sport. Therefore, you see more of their bodies and personalities. The guys in the NFL aren't much different than the guys in the NBA but you just don't see or hear them as much. The biggest difference between now and decades past is hip hop. It really comes down to that. People who hate hip hop, in general, hate the NBA. Whether they be black, white, brown, young, or old. Either way, I think it will always be behind football and baseball they are just synonymous with America (and latin America ). People say they market the superstar more than the team...they do this because in the NBA one player IS that important. The spurs are nothing without Duncan, the Bulls were nothing without MJ, we were nothing without Olajuwon. Of all the team sports, basketball is the least about a team, a great team can lose to a great player with a decent team.
I think its because the current game is atrocious to watch as opposed to 15-20 years ago. The overall field goal percentage has fallen substantially over these years.
But I do wish people could see past all of that. These are the best athletes in the world, and come playoff time they are competing at a very high level. But its hard to separate the image issue from race. The league is predominately black, and most of the behavior problems are problems with black players. Our very own Ron Artest has certainly done his part to tarnish the image of the NBA.
A lot of people feel that the NBA is rigged. Then again people also have conspiracy theories when someone wins the Super Bowl, but it is more common that people think the NBA is rigged.
A few of my friends who are professional sports wagerers swear the modern NBA basketball game is rigged, and thus they never touch a bet in this sport.
